The Death of the Heart (16 page)

But Portia had a slower reaction time. During the villain’s speech, while she ate crumpet, her brows had met in a rather uncertain line. While not really surprised, she had seemed to be hypnotised by this view of Anna. She was disturbed, and at the same time exhilarated, like a young tree tugged all ways in a vortex of wind. The force of Eddie’s behaviour whirled her free of a hundred puzzling humiliations, of her hundred failures to take the ordinary cue. She could meet the demands he made with the natural genius of the friend and lover. The impetus under which he seemed to move made life fall, round him and her, into a new poetic order at once. Any kind of policy in the region of feeling would have been fatal in any lover of his—you had to yield to the wind. Portia’s unpreparedness, her lack of policy—which had made Windsor Terrace, for her, the court of an incomprehensible law—with Eddie stood her in good stead. She had no point to stick to, nothing to unlearn. She had been born docile. The momentarily anxious glances she cast him had only zeal behind them, no crucial perplexity. By making herself so much his open piano that she felt her lips smile by reflex, as though they were his lips, she felt herself learn and gain him: this was Eddie. What he said, how he looked was becoming inevitable. From the first, he had not been unfamiliar to her. It might be said that, for the first time since Irene’s death, she felt herself in the presence of someone ordinary.

Innocence so constandy finds itself in a false position that inwardly innocent people learn to be disingenuous. Finding no language in which to speak in their own terms, they resign themselves to being translated imperfectly. They exist alone; when they try to enter into relations they compromise falsifyingly—through anxiety, through desire to impart and to feel warmth. The system of our affections is too corrupt for them. They are bound to blunder, then to be told they cheat. In love, the sweetness and violence they have to offer involves a thousand betrayals for the less innocent. Incurable strangers to the world, they never cease to exact a heroic happiness. Their singleness, their ruthlessness, their one continuous wish makes them bound to be cruel,’ and to suffer cruelty. The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet—when they do meet, their victims lie strewn all round.

Portia and Eddie, side by side at the table, her diary between them under one of her hands, turned on each other eyes in which two relentless looks held apart for a moment, then became one. To generate that one look, their eyes seemed for the first time to be using their full power. The look held a sort of superb mutual greeting rather than any softness of love. You would have said that two accomplices had for the first time spoken aloud to each other of their part in the same crime, or that two children had just discovered their common royal birth. On the subject of love, there was nothing to say: they seemed to have no projects and no desires. Their talk today had been round an understood pact: at this moment, they saluted its significance.

Portia’s life, up to now, had been all subtle gentle compliance, but she had been compliant without pity. Now she saw with pity, but without reproaching herself, all the sacrificed people—Major Brutt, Lilian, Matchett, even Anna—that she had stepped over to meet Eddie. And she knew that there would be more of this, for sacrifice is not in a single act. Windsor Terrace would not do well at her hands, and in this there was no question of justice: no outside people deserve the bad deal they get from love. Even Anna had shown her a sort of immoral kindness, and, however much Matchett’s love had been Matchett’s unburdening, it had been love: one must desert that too.

For Eddie, Portia’s love seemed to refute the accusations that had been brought against him for years, and the accusations he had brought against himself. He had not yet told her of half the indignation he felt. Older than she was, he had for longer suffered the guilty plausibility of the world. He had felt, not so much that he was in the right as that he was inevitable. He had gone wrong through dealing with other people in terms that he found later were not their own. However kind seemed the bosom he chose to lean his head on, he had found himself subject to preposterous rulings even there—and this had soon made the bosom vile for him. With love, a sort of maiden virtue of spirit stood outside his calamitous love affairs—the automatic quick touches he gave people (endearments, smiles to match smiles, the meaning-unmeaning use of his eyes) were his offensive-defensive, in defence of something they must not touch. His pretty ways had almost lost correspondence with appetite; his body was losing its
naïveté
. His real 
naïveté
 stayed in the withheld part of him, and hoped for honour and peace. Though he felt cut apart from his father and mother, in one sense he had never left home. He hated Anna, in so far as he did hate Anna, because he saw in her eyes a perpetual “What next?” Himself, he saw no Next, but a continuous Now.

He looked down at Portia’s hand and said: “What a fat diary!”

Lifting her hand, she uncovered the black-backed book. “It’s more than half full,” she said, “already.”

“When that’s done, you’re going to start another?”

“Oh yes, I think so: things are always happening.”

“But suppose you stopped minding whether they did?”

“There would always be lunch and lessons and dinner. There have been days that were simply that already, but in that case I always leave a blank page.”

“Do you think they were worth a whole blank page?”

“Oh yes, because they were days, after all.”

Eddie picked the diary up and weighed it between his hands. “And this is your thoughts, too?” he said.

“Some. But you make me wonder if I might stop thinking.”

“No, I like you to think. If you stopped, I should feel as though my watch had stopped in the night… . Which of your thoughts are these?”

“My more particular ones.”

“Darling, I love you to want me to take it home… . But supposing I went and left it in a bus?”

“It’s got my name and address, inside: it would probably come back. But perhaps, though, you could put it in your pocket?” They squeezed the note-book into his overcoat pocket. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “now there is you, I may not want my diary so much.”

“But we shan’t often meet.”

“I could keep what I think for you.”

“No, write it down, then show me. I like thoughts when they were thought.”

“But, in a way, that would not be quite the same thing. I mean, it would alter my diary. Up to now, it’s been written just for itself. If I’m to keep on writing the same way, I shall have to imagine you do not exist.”

“
I
don’t make you different.”

“You make me not alone. Being that was part of my diary. When I first came to London, I was the only person in the world.”

“Look—what will you write in while I’ve got this book? Shall we go to Smith’s and buy you another?”

“Smith’s near here is shut on Saturday afternoon. I don’t think, anyhow, I shall write about today.”

“No, don’t; you’re perfectly right. I don’t want you to
write
about you and me. In fact you must never write about me at all. Will you promise me you will never do that?”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t like the idea. No, just write about what happens. Write about lessons, and those sickening talks I’m certain you have with Lilian, and what there is for meals, and what the rest of them say. But
swear
you won’t write down what you feel.”

“You don’t know yet if I do.”

“I hate writing; I hate art—there’s always something else there. I won’t have you choosing words about me. If you ever start that, your diary will become a horrible trap, and I shan’t feel safe with you any more. I like you to think, in a sort of way; I like to think of you going, like a watch. But between you and me there must never be any thoughts. And I detest after-thoughts. In fact, I’m just as glad to be taking this book right away from you, even for a few days. Now, I suppose, you don’t understand what I’m saying?”

“No, but it doesn’t really matter.”

“The chap
you
ought to talk to is Major Brutt… .Oh, heavens!”

“Why?”

“It’s six. I ought to be somewhere else. I must go— Here, angel, take your gloves… .
Now,
what’s the matter?”

“You won’t forget it’s in your overcoat pocket?”

THE DIARY

Monday.

This diary has come back from Eddie by post. He did not write any letter as he did not have time. The parcel had the office label outside. I shall have to write hard now, as I will have missed nine days.

The white rug from by my bed has gone away to be cleaned where I upset the varnish for my bears. Matchett has put a red one that pricks my feet.

Today we did Umbrian Art History, Book Keeping and German Composition.

Tuesday.

Eddie has not said about this diary yet. Lilian was bilious in lessons and had to go out, she says when she has feelings it makes her bilious. Today when I got home Anna was out, so I could have tea down with Matchett She was busy mending Anna’s purple chiffon dress so did not ask me anything at all. When Anna came in she sent for me to come up and said she meant to take me to a concert this evening as she had a spare ticket. She looked put out.

Today we did English Essay, First Aid, and a Lecture on Racine. I must dress for the concert now.

Wednesday.

Eddie has not said about the diary yet. This morning Lilian and I were late for the first class, her mother is putting her on a diet. Last night when I was in the taxi with Anna she said she hoped I had enjoyed Eddie’s and my walk. I said yes, and she said, Eddie says he did. So I looked out of the window. She said she had a headache, and I said then didn’t the concert make it worse, and she said yes, naturally it did. It was a disappointment having to take me.

Today we did Hygiene and French Composition about Racine, and were taken to look at pictures of Umbrian Art at the National Gallery.

Tonight Thomas and Anna are going out to dinner. I do wonder if Matchett will say Good-night. I do wish my white rug would come back.

Thursday.

Today I have got a letter from Eddie, he still does not say about this diary. He says he had lunch with Anna and that she was nice. He says he did think of ringing me up, but did not. He does not say why. He says he feels he is starting a new life.

I do wonder who it was who did not go to that concert with Anna after all.

He says we must meet soon.

Today we did essays on our favourite Umbrian Art, and had to say what its characteristics were. We did Heine and were given our German Compositions back. We had a Lecture on Events of the Week.

Friday.

I have written to Eddie but not about this diary.

I wrote to Eddie at half-past four, when I got in, then went out again to buy a stamp to post it. Matchett did not hear the door either time, or at least she did not come up. Having tea with Anna were two new people who did not know if they ought to talk to me. Anna did not make any special impression on them, and they did not make any special impression on her. I did not stay there when I had had my tea.

It felt funny to come in twice, because once I am in 1 am generally in. When I came in after buying the stamp I felt still odder than I generally do, and the house was still more like always than usual. It always gets more so in the afternoon. When Thomas comes in he looks as though he was smelling something he thought he might not be let eat. This house makes a smell of feeling. Since I have known Eddie I ask myself what this smell is more.

Today we got our Essays on Racine back, and some of the girls discussed what they had put. We did Mettemich and were taken out to a Lecture on the Appreciation of Bach.

Tomorrow will be another Saturday.

Saturday.

I got a letter from Eddie, saying about Sunday. He said to ring him up if I could not
go,
but as I can I need not ring up. Before lunch Thomas and Anna drove away in the car, they are going off for the week-end. Anna said I could ask Lilian to tea, and Thomas gave me five shillings to go to the pictures with, he said he did hope I should be all right. Lilian cannot, so I am by the study fire. I like a day when there is some sort of tomorrow.

Sunday.

I shall just put “Sunday”, Eddie prefers that.

Monday.

Today we began Siennese Art, and did Book Keeping, and read a German play. Anna is having quite a big dinner party, she says I should not really enjoy myself.

Anyhow I should not mind, after yesterday.

Tuesday.

Today I have had a sort of conversation with Thomas. When he came in he rang to ask if Anna was there, so I said no and said should I come down and he was not sure but said yes. He was leaning on his desk reading the evening paper, and when I came in he said it was warmer, wasn’t it? He said in fact he felt stuffy. As he had not seen me last night, because of the dinner party, he asked had I had a nice week-end? He said he hoped I had not been at all lonely, so I said oh no. He asked if I thought Eddie was nice. I said oh yes, and he said, he was round here yesterday, wasn’t he? I said oh yes and said we had sat down here in the study, and that I did hope Thomas did not mind people sitting down here in his study. He said oh no, oh no in a sort of far-off voice. He said he supposed I and Eddie were rather friends, and I said yes we were. Then he went back to reading the evening paper as if there was something new in it.